HP DL380 G5 server BIOS Upgrade interrupted and no longer booting

Question

Whilst in the middle of doing a maintenance CD and iLO upgrade via the iLO on a HP DL380 G5, lost connectivity to the server. After this point unable to contact the iLO. Will not ping. Unplugged all cables, power, ilo, kvm and other network cables. Left unplugged for a couple of minutes. Plugged all back in again hoping that the server will boot and the bios will go back to its backup rom. It didn't, the server did not boot, no HP splash screen, no POST.

Powered off the server, unplugged all cables, removed the bios battery and re-inserted it. Plugged all cables back in and powered on the server. No change to the status, server did not get to POST. screen stayed blank.

powered down and unplugged all cables again. flicked the System maintenance switch S6 to on. (as per the Server Maintenance and Service Guide) plugged in again and powered on, same again, no POST for the server, not even the HP splash screen powered down and unplugged again, set the switch S6 back to off plugged in and powered on again, same symptoms. nothing coming up on the server, no splash screen, no POST.

Apart from calling in HP, is there anything else any one can suggest I try?

Solution 1

Does the ILO still boot? I suspect that something fried durnig your upgrade. If something actually did go south during the system bios, you should be able to boot from the backup bios image. If something went wrong with the ILO update, the system itself should still boot. If both are dead I suspect somethign else is also dead since the maintenance CD updates things 1 at a time.

Solution 2

had a similar problem, it is an ILO bug in older versions you can fix it yourself if you follow the instructions here: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01850906

Comments

[Sim]

Sorry Mouse but I think your only action is to contact HP.

[Admin]

Update: HP have been out and replaced the motherboard. Still dead. So they have gone away to order more parts. So still waiting for a final resolution.

[Admin]

Update 2: HP came back with another motherboard, and this time it fixed the problem. The other MB was obviously DOA. :) This is not a good result really, wondering now if it is just related to 8.60. This type of resolution is not something I am looking forward to for my remote sites which do not have IT people at to do the firmware updates. Anyways, all fixed now, just so you all know. Thanks for your responses.